Thursday, October 01, 2009
Zombies, Wilson bookend Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre's season
Post Gazette: "Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre's seventh season bookends a zombie-themed story by North Hills native Scott T. Barsotti with August Wilson's 'Jitney,' part of the company's mission to produce plays in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle in the order in which they appeared on Broadway."
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4 comments:
As much as I love zombies, I'm getting a little sick of them. I get that they're an easy, entertaining, and very well known monster that can be created in a matter of minutes if necessary, but I'm beginning to get zombied out. Between the Pittsburgh Zombie March, normal old Halloween, Zombieland, and now a play about zombies all happening in the same month, the walking dead seem like less of a cool idea, and more of an easy sell. I'm not saying that all of these different forms of zombie media don't have their own distinct flavors and reasons, but I'm just not sure the general public is this into zombies.
I personally like zombies as well, but I like the expansion of the genre is really becoming something important. I feel as if saying there are too many zombies is comparable to saying there are too many sci fi or action films, etc. I mean this in all seriousness. Beyond just a gimmick, zombies have developed into a way to state political views through metaphor, or other legitimate statements. There are no longer just "zombie" things. Instead, it's developing sub-genres. The play mentioned in the article appears to be more about being sheltered from an unknown fear, in this case it happens to be zombies. They are a fill-in for so many different topics.
Charlie I do believe for my birthday in August you gave me a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I enjoyed very much. I believe this zombie craze is similar to the vampire obsession that we are experiencing right now. Countless books, movies and TV shows including Twilight, True Blood Vampire Diaries and Vampire Academy etc... all about vampires seem to have taken over. At first I also felt like it was too much, however I find all the very different interpretations of the creatures very interesting. While all these shows and books have come out relative,y close to each other they each have different views on how the creatures originated, what their strengths and weaknesses are, where and how they live, how they look like, what and who they can and cannot eat and how they interact with those around them, not to mention wether their existence justifies the existence of other creatures. In each of these cases every time a choice is made they must come up with a world that supports it and a way to justify it and make it make sense. I think as long as people are interested in a certain subject, there is value in being able to juxtapose many different theories exploring it in many different ways.
With it being Halloween and all this isn't that surprising. You really don't see that many zombie theme plays, books, or movies coming out except for around this time of year. They have become really popular these days with the release of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, though I really don't understand why. I am also curious as to why Pittsburgh is a really invested in zombies compared to other cities. I hate to just say it comes from the movie, but there doesn't seem to be any other explanation.
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